Course catalogue
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Academic Programme
Implemented from September 2025
Dynamics of photochemical reactions in chemistry, biology and medicine (6 ECTS)
Semester 1
+
All courses during this semester
- Experimental methods on innovative research infrastructures - 5 ECTS
- Digital Micro-certification "The challenges of sustainable chemistry" - 10h
- Transferable skills : French language & interculturality (3 ECTS)
- Quantum mechanics towars quantum computing (5 ECTS)
- Winter school in Data Science (2 ECTS)
- Organic / Inorganic chemistry towards sustainability (5 ECTS)
- Kinetics and Electrochemistry (5 ECTS)
- Introduction to biophysics and microscopies for life science (5 ECTS)
Semester 2
+
All courses during this semester
- Luminescence spectroscopy of Lanthanides (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Polish course (3 ECTS)
- The molecules of life: from structure to chemical function (5 ECTS)
- Thermodynamics and soft matter (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to solid state (5 ECTS)
- Tech-infused perspectives on photochemical reaction dynamics (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Portuguese course (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Solid State Physics (5 ECTS)
- Molecular Energetics (3 ECTS)
- Laboratory of Materials and Surface Analysis (5 ECTS)
- Interfacial Electrochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Interfaces, Colloids and Self-Assembly (6 ECTS)
Semester 3
+
All courses during this semester
- 1-year research project - master thesis (equivalent 45 ECTS)
- Progress assessment of the research project (equivalent 6 ECTS)
- Weekly seminars (equivalent 4 ECTS)
- Special Topics in Chemistry (equivalent 5 ECTS)
- French language courses (3 ECTS)
- Nanosciences (6 ECTS)
- Medical applications of nanomaterials and radiations (6 ECTS)
- Top management, corporate law, and project writing for technology transfer and decision making (4 ECTS)
- Tracking ultrafast radiation-induced reactivity (3 ECTS)
- Applications for renewable energy and storage: solar fuels, batteries and hydrogen (6 ECTS) (6 ECTS)
- Scientific Writing and career objectives (2 ECTS)
- Surface Science and Nanostructuring at Surfaces (6 ECTS)
- Polymers for electronics and energy harvesting (5 ECTS)
- Electrochemical systems for fuel and electrolysis cells and batteries (6 ECTS)
- Project-based laboratory on device building (3 ECTS)
- Italian Courses (3 ECTS)
- Chemistry and Technology of Catalysis (5 ECTS)
Content
- Principles of absorption and emission spectroscopy (energy, reactivity and structure in singlet and triplet electronic excited states, Jablonski diagram).
- Timescales and mechanisms of fast and ultrafast processes (radiative decay, rotational motion, vibrational motion, internal conversion and intersystem crossing, vibrational relaxation, collisions in liquids).
- Potential energy surfaces of the ground state (S0) and excited state (S1 or T1) and of various processes following the initial excitation. Structure (geometry) changes in the excited state as an important path of deactivation in radiationless physical processes and photochemical reactions. Relation between physical processes and chemical reactions: rotation and isomerization reactions, vibration and dissociation reactions.
- Short-lived species formed in photochemical reactions: radicals, radical-ions, dimers, complexes. The effects of concentration of the substance studied, of the solvent properties and of the wavelength of the radiation absorbed. Energy transfer processes, sensitizers and quenchers.
- Storage and conversion of solar energy.
- Instruments and methods of investigation of photophysical processes and photochemical reactions. Steady-state and time-resolved (laser) absorption and emission spectroscopy.
- Application of sensitization and/or quenching processes in studies of mechanism and dynamics of photophysical and photochemical processes, using time-resolved and steady-state spectroscopy. Stern-Volmer equation
- Sunscreens – mechanism of action, composition, energy dissipation
- Labs include nano- and femotosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, laser spectroscopy.
Aims
The student knows the breakthroughs in light-related sciences, knows most important discoveries related to the interaction between light and matter, knows the principles of operation of the most popular spectroscopic devices (e.g.: absorption and emission spectrophotometer, laser) and some selected, more advanced setups (transient absorption spectroscopy and TCSPC techniques).
Recommended Books
- H. Zewail: Ultrafast Molecular Reaction Dynamics in Real-Time, Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 41, 15, 1990
- G. R. Fleming: Chemical Applications of Ultrafast Spectroscopy, Oxford Univ. Press, 1986
- M. A. El-Sayed, I. Tanaka, Y. Molin: Ultrafast Processes in Chemistry and Photobiology, Blackwell Science 1995
- F. C. De Schryver, S. De Feyter, G. Schweitzer: Femtochemistry, Wiley-VCH, 2001
Teaching Staff
Prof. Bronislaw Marciniak
Prof. Bohdan Skalski
Dr. Gonzalo Angulo
Dr. Tomasz Pedzinski
Hours
Lectures 15 h
Project based learning 35 hours
Journal club 10 hours